Three table tennis teams travelled to Blackburn on Saturday November 12th to take part in the Lancashire Schools Table Tennis Competition. All three teams came home with trophies - the Under 13 Girls team were crowned champions of Lancashire and both the Under 13 and Under 16 Boys teams finished runners up.
The Under 16 Boys team of Owen Bendall, Owen Pye, Robert Harry and Harry Grundy comfortably defeated St Augustine's 8-0 and then Broughton 6-2 on their way to the final. The final was a close affair ending 4-4 with two wins for Owen Bendall and one each for Robert Harry and Owen Pye, sadly the match was lost on games countback.
The Under 13 Boys team of Adam Holland, George Wherry, Tyler Wharton and Christian Bywater achieved similar results defeating St Bede's 2nd Team 5-3 and then St Augustine's 8-0 before meeting St Bede's 1st Team in the final, sadly the St Bede's team were too strong and the team finished runners up after a 6-2 defeat.
The Under 13 Girls team of Katie Smith, Daisy Rafferty, Sophie Simmons and Sophie Little had to overcome Lancaster Girls Grammar School in a straight final. Jess Loxam defeated Daisy Rafferty 3-0 to give the Grammar girls a great start, however this was quickly cancelled out as Katie Smith defeated Erica Pollard with the same scoreline. Next up came Sophie Simmons who lost the first game to Rosalyn Pollard before turning the match around and winning 3-1. Sophie Little was unlucky to lose the next match to Caitlyn Currie being on the end of a close 3-2 defeat which restored the scores to parity at 2-2.
Katie Smith then had to face Grammar No.1 Jess Loxam and she played superbly, after losing the first game she turned it around to clinch a 3-1 victory, this was followed by another win, this time from Daisy Rafferty who defeated Rosalyn Pollard 3-0. Erica Pollard then defeated Sophie Little 3-1, leaving the match score at 4-3 to Garstang, the final match would either mean victory for Garstang or a draw and the prospect of countback, Sophie Simmons lost the first two games and a draw was looking the likely outcome, Sophie however had other ideas and turned the match around to clinch a 3-2 win, and an overall 5-3 win for the team.
The Under 13 Girls will now go on to represent Lancashire in the next round of the competition to be held at Blackburn on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of January.